OVERVIEW

Background: San Diego police officer shoots and wounds a mother and son during a road-rage incident March 15, 2008, in Oceanside while he is off duty.

July 29: Officer Frank White is charged with one felony count of grossly negligent discharge of a firearm and one misdemeanor count of exhibiting a firearm.

Nov. 10: Rachel Silva pleads guilty to felony child endangerment and misdemeanor drunken driving and faces four years in state prison on the felony charge. She is scheduled to be sentenced in July.

Yesterday: Opening statements and witness testimony get under way in White's trial in Vista Superior Court.

Did off-duty policeman Frank White identify himself as an officer before he fired five shots into Rachel Silva's car in a road-rage encounter last year in Oceanside?

Was he starting to get out of his car when Silva drove in reverse toward his sedan?

The answers were disputed in Vista Superior Court yesterday as jurors heard opening statements and witness testimony in the first day of White's trial.

The 29-year-old San Diego police officer is charged with one felony count of grossly negligent discharge of a firearm and one misdemeanor count of exhibiting a firearm. Silva and her then 8-year-old son were both wounded in the shooting, which occurred March 15, 2008, in an Oceanside parking lot.

White faces up to nine years in prison if convicted.

His attorney, Rick Pinckard, told the jury in his opening statement that White identified himself as an officer before the shooting. He said White “pointed a gun to where the threat was and he shouted: ‘Police. Stop!’ ”

Prosecutor Jeff Dusek played recordings of 911 calls made by Silva and White's wife, a Carlsbad police dispatcher who was with her husband the night of the shooting.

On the recording of Jacquellyn White's call, Dusek told the jury, White can't be heard identifying himself as an officer before the shots are fired.

Dusek also said a sound that the Mercury Milan's door makes when it's opened can't be heard on the recording. “You will not hear his door open,” Dusek told the jury.

Pinckard disagreed over whether White had opened his door, saying that White's wife had been afraid her husband would be crushed between the door and the car's frame when Silva reversed her Honda Accord.

The incident began, Pinckard said, while the Whites were driving to the Ralphs supermarket in the Old Grove Shopping Center about 9 p.m.

During the investigation, a witness said Silva rolled out onto Old Grove Road, cutting off the Whites near the shopping center. Authorities said Silva was then apparently about to go home when she crossed lanes and followed the Whites into the shopping center.

Authorities said she was revving her engine as she followed the Whites, eventually pulling so close that White couldn't open his door. Dusek said Silva didn't hit the Whites' car up to this point.

White backed up to get Silva's license plate, and she reversed her car toward his. He fired five shots, hitting her twice in the arm and her son once in the left knee.

Pinckard said that the Whites didn't see Silva's son in the car and were “being attacked by a 2,500-pound weapon.”

Dusek said Silva's passenger-side mirror bent completely forward when it hit White's driver-side mirror, leaving scrapes on White's mirror. He said there is also a slight dent above the left rear wheel of White's car where her Honda hit it. “That's the extent of the damage,” he said.

According to testimony yesterday, White was initially handcuffed and detained before officers determined that he was an off-duty police officer.

Silva faced numerous charges after the encounter and pleaded guilty last November to felony child endangerment and misdemeanor drunken driving.

Authorities said her blood-alcohol level was 0.15 percent at the time of the shooting — nearly twice the legal limit — and that she also had marijuana and methamphetamine in her system.

She faces four years in state prison on the felony charge when she is sentenced in July.